The humble checklist has been receiving a good deal of attention in recent years, particularly in the context of medical error avoidance. For example, earlier this year the New England Journal of Medicine published A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population. The international study reported a nearly 50% decline in patient deaths when a combined written/verbal checklist was used in conjunction with surgical procedures. The authors diligently point out several possible sources of error that may have contributed to the results, including the Hawthorne effect, a "short-term improvement caused by observing worker performance."
But rather than seeing the Hawthorne effect as a source of error, I see it as a source of performance. That is, the checklist process serves as a continuing form of performance observation - by having to refer to an external reference, the surgical teams were consistently self-aware and performed better as a consequence.
Self-awareness is an important issue in successful design as well. A major challenge in user research is communicating recommendations or guidelines to a design and/or engineering team, with the goal of affecting the team's behavior towards a desired design outcome. Design guidelines are typically communicated in a number of ways - reports, presentations, working sessions, collaborative discussions, etc. - but the checklist format might be an even more effective communication tool. This is because of both the way checklists are created, and how they are used.
The checklist format requires that information is presented in specific, succinct and actionable terms. For example detailing the size of touch points, the labeling of a control, or the diameter of a handle. This forces the checklist creator (i.e. the researcher) to come to specific recommendations. Those items that cannot be boiled down to a single point should be further discussed or researched until they can be, and if not, considered for removal.
For the checklist reader, the benefits of a structured list over a more vague presentation or lengthy report should be clear. But its also important to keep in mind the verbal component of checklist usage in the medical study. The check-and-balance approach of having open communication is probably as important, if not more, than the checklist itself.
Comparing the benefits of a checklist in the highly structured, rigorous surgical domain with the creative, diverse world of design may be a stretch, but I expect that the value of clear communication is consistent across all human endeavors.
